At A Glance: Analyzing Some Of Obama’s Most Dangerous Weaknesses

7/27/10
At A Glance: Analyzing Some Of Obama’s Most Dangerous Weaknesses
(in no particular order)
This is a follow-up of last weeks look at what attributes, background, and experiences make for effective leaders. When examining Obama’s term as President of the United States thus far, the list of crucial characteristics and traits in which he is suffering from a “considerable want of” is alarmingly long and alarmingly diverse. Providing an accurate chronicle and analysis of all items on than list would result in a several volume desk reference set of missteps and misery. I have accordingly selected three items on that formidable list that I consider to the be the most dangerous and most likely to cause harm.

All Things Economic - The unemployment rate in the United States presently (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) is somewhere between 9.7% [U1] and 17.1% [U6]. The stimulus package passed in 2009 - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which passed through Congress on the promise of it keeping unemployment (U1) below 8.0% - has been less than effective in stimulating much of anything other than constituent disapproval. When one considers all of the various stimulus packages passed, we find ourselves well into the >$1 trillion range. That’s dangerous territory for any sort of government program - all the more so when said program failed to accomplish anything tangible and/or measurable.
Less than two years into his term, Barack Obama has left us mired in Keynesian demand-side economic theory. After trillions of dollars of deficit spending, millions of unemployment insurance applications submitted, and NO unequivocal private sector stimulus measurements to speak of, President Obama’s answer is not to try a new tactic or approach, but to double down! At the G-20 Summit last month in Canada, Obama found himself clashing head-on with European heads of state - who in the preceding few years have come to terms with the folly of creating a sustainable welfare state - by urging them to immediately cancel their recently imposed austerity measures. Rather than learn from the mistakes of Europe, Obama seems dead-set on forcing us to learn that very same lesson the hard way.
This particular weakness of being unable to comprehend real-life economics ties in very closely to my previous article on leadership qualities: Obama has no real-world experience to speak of. Obama is dictating financial and economic policy to businessmen and executives despite the fact that Obama himself has never once owned, run, or even worked for a for-profit business of any size in his entire life.

Foreign Policy In General - Having demonstrated little to no knowledge or interest in United States history or world history, Obama is poorly equipped to navigate the ever more complex and intricate realm of United States foreign policy & foreign relations.
Obama’s most oft-repeated foreign policy blunder (aside from his inability to refrain from bowing to every single foreign national he meets overseas, of course) has been his “Ally Blindness” - his seemingly total inability to distinguish our allies from our enemies. As a nation we have generated many close alliances over the years, and even some special “relationships” with certain other nations as a result of the shared history of our respective peoples. Many of these alliances have proved instrumental to the maintenance of world peace and the protection of our interests abroad. Ever since taking office in January, 2009, Obama has done much to sully our relationships with many of our closest allies, often going so far as publicly offering his personal support (and as Commander in Chief, the official support of the government of the United States) to those in direct opposition of our allies. The two instances of this that stand out in my mind would be the publicly announced support for Argentina’s claim on the Falklands, and the shockingly less than supportive treatment of Israel with regard to it’s on-going mission to NOT get wiped off the face of the planet by the numerous hostile nations surrounding it.
Obama’s treatment of Israel is obviously the far more consequential of the two blunders as I’m sure Argentina is in no rush to be embarrassed on the world stage again, but both actions represent betrayals of our allies. His strategy of trying to appease the enemies of our allies projects nothing but weakness; so much so that our NATO ally Turkey (former ally now, perhaps?), and non NATO member but valued ally Brazil have found it prudent to side with Iran and its theocrat Islamo-fascist nuclear-weapons-seeking loons over the United States! Such a stunning betrayal would have been totally inconceivable under President Bush or even President Clinton for that matter.
　
Administration of the “machine” that is the United States of America - This section could be expanded with little difficulty to fill many, many pages, but in summary Obama has approached the role of President as a legislator rather than an executive administrator. For Obama or any leader to be successfully carry out his duties, he MUST make decisive judgments on a very regular basis. A leader must gather the most reliable data available, make a decision based on that data, and stick with it. A leader will never please everyone, and continuously trying to please everyone will only result in pleasing no one. That reality must be accepted. Rather than issuing commands and delegating authority to subordinates, Obama’s response is to “solve” a given problem by forming what I consider to be the epitome of bureaucratic inefficiency - establishing some damned commission or committee to “analyze” the situation and offer a carefully-worded suggestion as to how to solve the problem. Unfortunately, however, by the time a solution is suggested by one of these groups, it is invariably too late to be of any real use.
A successful executive - especially an executive in government, and infinitely more so as the executive of the entire government - should make every effort to cut through bureaucratic inefficiency. A leader should be cutting the red tape, not creating more of it! It would appear that the Obama Administration simply can not help itself from creating incredible amounts of its very own Obama-brand red tape at every turn.
The most striking demonstration of this weakness which I can think of (tragically so…) would be the Administration’s pathetic response to the BP spill in the gulf, and the sad fact that 71 days had to elapse before the Obama Administration finally decided to accept help (and even then, only “in principle”) from some of the many nations that offered us assistance in containing the disaster. Most of the nations offering help did so on day 3 or 4 of the spill!
The explosion of the Deep Horizon oil rig and the subsequent gushing of the underwater well was a disaster by any definition of the word. That disaster was transformed into a full-blown epic catastrophe by the staggering ineptitude of President Obama and his Administration. All-in-all, Barack Obama has created or worsened FAR more problems than he has solved.

Lowered Expectations

After much thought and reflection I have determined that it is unfair for anyone to voice disappointment with Barack Obama’s considerably less-than-impressive performance thus far as Commander in Chief. Disappointment implies that a different result was expected. Where on Earth did that expectation come from?
Aside from successfully defeating bumbling and stumbling Old Man McCain in the 2008 election and agitating his way into the Illinois political arena prior to that, Barack Obama has never accomplished anything of consequence in what persons outside of governmental bureaucracy would call the “real world”. Prior to elected office, the entirety of Barack Obama’s professional life consists of working at either a law school or a crackpot left-wing non-profit. Individually or as part of a group, in the public or private sector, Barack Obama has never actually produced anything of any use in his entire life. Not exactly what I would call superb training to lead the United States Government.
This is not privileged information. Even Obama himself acknowledges this reality. When questioned about what experience(s) in his life qualify him for the Presidency, his reply was the experience of running his campaign. That was the best - and only - qualifying experience he was able to proffer (and it probably should be noted that the vast majority of campaign operations were handled by Obama’s senior staffers, but I’ll let that slide I suppose…).
With all of this in mind, how could any reasonable person expect some sort of cleverly orchestrated administrative success from President Obama? How could anyone be shocked and disappointed when he fails to deliver? While these observations explain his exceptionally ineffective executive leadership, they do not justify it.
The ship of State is presently being piloted by the single most inexperienced and inept captain in it’s proud history. Our ship is taking on water and veering directly for the rocks and shoals. If we fail to wrest some amount of control from the liberal Democrats in November, the consequences are too terrible to contemplate.